itSynergy: Blog
How to Increase Patient Satisfaction with Better Technology
How to Increase Patient Satisfaction with Better Technology
First of all, your patients aren’t feeling well, so they may arrive to your office in a bad mood anyway. Their demeanor doesn’t improve, however, if they encounter issues when they come to your practice for health care.
The top patient complaints are:
- Communications – 53%
- Long wait times – 35%
- Practice staff – 12%
- Billing – 2%
These complaints result from a variety of reasons; however, they also can be improved with effective use of technology. Today’s tech savvy patients are likely to voice their complaints on social media like Yelp, Facebook and Twitter. They also come to appointments with more information regarding their conditions as many have researched ailments and symptoms on WebMD or other health applications.
Address the above patient complaints using the below IT solutions:
Improve technical knowledge
This is where complaint #3 comes in – practice staff. If administrative staff are fumbling around with equipment and unable to serve patients efficiently when checking in or collecting or releasing patient information, patients can become testy.
The healthcare industry is late to the technology table. Many doctors and nurses are still learning technical systems put into place to record patient information, order prescriptions and look up possible diagnoses and treatments. This may result in your doctors or nurses spending more time looking at a computer screen or tablet than engaging with your patient. A major complaint reported by patients is bad bedside manner and feeling rushed or ignored during appointments. Complaints #1 and #2 can result from this issue.
Training and ongoing professional development go a long way in increasing patient satisfaction.
Complaint #4 – billing can be due to lack of knowledge regarding the system(s) where payments, insurance claims and treatments are managed. One, integrated system can curtail this problem.
Improve patient’s ability to schedule appointments
Patient access is an ongoing problem. Many healthcare digital systems do not communicate with one another, making it more difficult to schedule appointments – especially when it comes to physician referrals. Less than 10% of hospitals report that they’ve been able to trade records entirely through digital systems so many healthcare providers still communicate via fax or phone. The result is that 46% of faxed patient referrals are not successful in scheduling needed appointments because the faxes are lost, missing information, not properly authorized or took too long to contact the patient.
Patient appointments are critical, not only for the patient’s health, but for the economic viability of the entire healthcare industry. If appointments are not made, caregivers, insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies and other businesses along the healthcare chain suffer.
There are several technology platforms that can help providers and staff route patients to the best, most appropriate caregiver in their community. Plus – these systems also integrate into EMR platforms to reduce referral leakage.
This solution contributes to complaints #1, #2 and #3.
Reduce your patients’ dissatisfaction with an integrated IT system. Contact itSynergy at 602-297-2400 or online.
